WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Islamist Tantrum
by Bret Stephens
November 16, 2015

We live in the age of the sanctified tantrum—the political and religious furies we dare not name or shame, much less confront. Students bully college administrators with contrived political demands. The administrators plead they can do better, then capitulate. Incompetent writers pen trite racial screeds aimed at the very society that lifts them above their ability. They are hailed as geniuses. Donald Trump’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination epitomizes the politics of the tantrum. He’s angry as hell, and so is his base. We’re supposed to respect this. And then there is the tantrum of Islam, another eruption of rage that feeds off our astonishing willingness to indulge it. Before Friday’s carnage in the City of Light, the world was treated to the hideous spectacle of Palestinians knifing Jews in Israel. The supposed motive of these stabbings was a rumor among Palestinians—fanned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—that the Israeli government intended to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT